By eleven-thirty a.m., Stiles’s men had loaded a wagon with the town’s treasure. At noon, not wanting a posse of over one hundred enraged miners after them, he ordered the mine blown.

One hundred and twenty-seven men were sealed underground in the blast, turning the Magdalena Silver Mine into a giant tomb. After taking most of the town’s horses and livestock, and raping a number of womenfolk, the Stiles Gang rode off, pulling their wagonload of booty behind them.

Governor Giddings wired the Texas governor for help. Captain Franchard and his Ranger detachment, the best in Texas, were dispatched. Their orders were simple: capture or kill Major Dalton Stiles, eradicate his gang, and do so with all due haste.

Captain Tom Franchard, Pritchard, and sixteen other veteran Rangers left Fort Worth on horseback in January of 1873.

It was more than six hundred miles to the New Mexico Territory. Three days into their journey, Franchard and his Rangers made a stop at the SD&P ranch.

Ditch had made good on his intent to acquire the vast BB&B spread, just north of his own ranch, formerly belonging to the late Winston Boone and his now-deceased sons. Ditch and Paul Clemson used the additional grazing land to support several thousand more head of cattle and more than fifty breeding horses. They had also taken on a staff of ten hands, in addition to Foreman Alejandro Ruiz, as well as a full-time cook.

“Been a while,” Ditch said as he shook Pritchard’s, and then Captain Franchard’s, hands.

“Nigh on three years,” Pritchard agreed.

Ditch examined his friend. “With that long hair and beard, you look like Goliath stepped right out of the pages of the Bible,” he chuckled. “You tryin’ to tempt the Comanche into takin’ your scalp?”

“If I’m Goliath,” Pritchard unleashed one of his rare smiles, “who does that make you?”

“Just because I’m smaller than you,” Ditch laughed, “and my name’s David?”

Ditch ordered his cook to slaughter a cow, and the Rangers had beefsteak and beer for supper. At dusk, Paul and Ruiz, who’d been out checking stock with their men all day, rode in.

Ruiz shook Franchard’s hand, but hugged Pritchard. “It is good to see you, Señor Joe,” he said, “even if you do look like a big, yellow, bear.”

During the evening meal, Ditch announced that when spring weather was fully set in, in another month or two, he, Paul, Ruiz, and the hands of the SD&P Ranch were going to drive their herd up north, to Kansas.

Texas had an overabundance of cattle, Ditch explained. The going price in San Antonio was currently around one dollar and fifty cents per head. But in Abilene, Kansas, five hundred miles north, where the railroads could launch beef eastward, a fair-sized steer sold for as much as twenty-four dollars.